Dialectics and conspiracy

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Henry Musikar wrote:
> 
> > I've always thought that the safety of ground zero was a joke (see end of
> > GR) as it goes against the bell-curve distribution that I would expect. Any
> > rocket-scientists?
> 
> Yes, it sounds like a joke, the point of which being that the aim is so
> incredibly inaccurate. There is a slightly puzzling statement in the
> middle of all this (p. 425): "Chances are astronomically against a perfect
> hit, of course, that is why one is safest at the center of the target
> area." No problem with the first half of this run-on sentence but the
> second half is an example of superstitious thinking. There are other
> places just as safe--and of course other places a whole lot safer though
> perhaps not in view of the action. (The thinking is a bit like someone
> taking a true or false test deciding to himself, I think the statement is
> true, but since I'm a rather stupid (or unlucky) fellow I'll choose false)

Paranoid vanity? 



von Braun has been testing rockets and "because of his YOUTH
(my caps, german youth) and a number of test
failures--though HEAVEN (my caps, note Pynchon's use of
"God", "Hell", "Heaven", "Jesus Christ",  etc.) knew, there
were always enough of those, they were the raw material of
all testing-station politics...It was impossible to think of
the Rocket without thinking of Schicksal (DESTINY), of
growing toward a shape predestined and perhaps a little
OTHERWORLDLY (my caps). GR416 

Does Pokler doubt this destiny? Doubt the system won? 



Here, the Rocket functions on several metaphorical and
ironic levels. In part (Pokler's part here), the rocket is
now linked to the Destiny and the "poor harassed German soul
and to Faustian Hubris.  The rocket, we were told, remember,
we were told this in the Enzian and Wiessmann flashback, was
a total system won--a homosexual/S&M love, against the
ENTROPIES of lovable but scatterbrained mother earth.  What
happens though is that the rocket, if by a failure or
whatever, when it explodes, disintegrates entropically. What
is won away from nature? And why does Pynchon call it a
total SYSTEM?